Fury over Senegal's private land buyers

SAINT LOUIS, 24 June 2014 (IRIN) - Senegalese smallholder Doudou Sow is furious. Over the last 10 years, he says, farmers have been squeezed out by an influx of private investors acquiring fertile arable land in the Senegal River Valley where he has worked as a farmer for the last two decades.

SAINT LOUIS, 24 June 2014 (IRIN) - Senegalese smallholder Doudou Sow is furious. Over the last 10 years, he says, farmers have been squeezed out by an influx of private investors acquiring fertile arable land in the Senegal River Valley where he has worked as a farmer for the last two decades.

"I do not understand why hundreds of hectares are being given to outsiders when the priority should be to make land available to our own farmers," protests Sow, a native of Saint Louis Region in the north of Senegal.